


Jealousy

by Mimca



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: F/M, Layton Mystery Detective Agency Spoilers, Layton's Mystery Journey Spoilers, OR IS IT, One-Shot, One-Sided Attraction, Post-Layton's Mystery Journey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 07:50:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18734752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimca/pseuds/Mimca
Summary: At long last, Katrielle is reunited with her family. And to see the woman he loves so happy should have made Ernest just as happy. With emphasis on should.





	Jealousy

The agency’s tea table had never been so crowded.  
  
The Layton Litter Family Reunion–the name being Sherl’s invention–came to be naturally, seamlessly. Miss Layton had built the detective agency in hopes to find her father, and that was where the Professor found her again. The others followed. Luke Triton and Alfendi Layton and Lucy Baker. They came, they knew, like _asteraceaes_ know to follow the course of the sun.  
  
Ernest would not know.  
  
Of course, Miss Layton always had had her blend of Belle Classic ready for her father’s return–it had become, as Ernest had learned, her favorite as well. The bitter taste of it was an acquired taste that came, he supposed, with maturity. She liked to add just a drop of cream to sweeten it. He elected to serve that tea to the five people gathered around the table. No one complained–well, Alfendi did, but he had been assured the complaint was a matter of principle.  
  
That was when the sixth teacup shattered on the floor. Ernest knew full well that it was not his chronic unluckiness that made his hands tremble so much; all the same, he apologized, as he picked up the pieces and hurried into the pantry.  
  
Yet even as he held the tray above the empty basket, his hand refused to move. His head pounded, felt heavy with the weight of his own heart at the tip of his lips. There was something he wanted to say, but will not–Miss Layton did not deserve it, not today. It would have been better if he could simply throw up his own thoughts, along with the broken pieces of porcelain–  
  
“ _Oy, Pinstripes!_ ” Ernest almost jumped out of his skin. The broken pieces missed the basket.  
  
“Golly, Sherl, you surprised me! I–Is there something wrong?”  
  
“You tell me,” Sherl answered. Ernest crouched to pick one by one the fragments. “I’m bored! In case you’ve forgotten, I can’t exactly _talk_ to anyone else here. It’s best for Kat that I can’t! There are a few minor corrections I’d make to her stories.”  
  
“I see.” He did not, but he did not feel like having a conversation, and the basset might have guessed it–it was hard to tell whether his discontent was real, or just the natural disposition of his breed. “What about Mister Luke–”  
  
“I guess a talking dog is not that impressive when you can talk to every animal. He’s been telling all about his and the Professor’s adventures,” Sherl rambled on. In Ernest’s hand, the little piece of porcelain blinked in and out of existence. “Tophat doesn’t look much like an explorer, though. You couldn’t tell Kat’s his daughter if you didn’t see them together–”  
  
“Stop, Sherl.” Ernest surprised himself to hear that kind of strength coming from him, and felt instantly remorseful when the chatty basset did, in fact, stop talking. “Please.”  
  
“What’s the matter with you?” Sherl barked. “Aldebaran’s gone, the Professor’s home, Kat’s finally reunited with her family–now what are you turning tail for?!”  
  
“I know I should be happy for Miss Layton.” And he was. Really! First, he had entertained the idea that his pain was just natural. He had hoped her happiness would have been reserved for him, were their relationship to go so far, is all. But that was before the broken teacup. Before he saw his ghost in the window. Sherl would not understand that. “I suppose I’m… A bit jealous, is all.”  
  
“Jealous, you say?”  
  
Both turned their heads in unison. A playful smile on her lips, Katrielle Layton stood in the doorway.  
  
“Al’s been asking where I put my own sidekick,” she dropped casually. “You’ve been taking an awful long time to clean one broken teacup, and tea’s getting cold. But evidently, there’s something else on your mind.” Of course. He could never have pretended in front of her. “Now, what was it about you being _jealous_?” Still, he hated the way his word disfigured her.  
  
For a split second, Ernest thought his legs would fail him; but with what little dignity he had remaining, he managed to stand up. “Ah, Miss Layton, I didn’t mean to say–”  
  
“Just spill it, Pinstripes,” Sherl prompted curtly.  
  
“… They’re all so kind,” Ernest articulated, carefully choosing his words. He meant it. He could not be oblivious to the way her face brightened when her father remembered a puzzle, when she fought against Miss Baker over the last slice of pie. Each of these moments felt like the stab of a knife. “You’re so lucky to have them. But I–I’ll never have that–”  
  
Miss Layton tilted her head. “You’ll never have–?”  
  
“A _family_!” On that last word Ernest’s voice broke, and before he knew it, the tears he had fought so hard to fight back spilled. Like water from a dam, bursting under the pressure, rippling through his entire body.  
  
He saw her lips form words his eyes silenced. No doubt she hated him–he had ruined her long-awaited family reunion. Just because he could not keep his own desires in check. Again. “I guess I–” A dark chuckle escaped his lips. “I can’t escape my true nature–After all–It was the same with the Dragons.”  
  
_“I just cannot understand why someone as intelligent and good-natured as you would pursue such a worthless folly as revenge.”_  
  
_He frowned. Of course, at the root of everything was the promise he had made his mother; but it was not the whole truth, as Miss Layton had likely figured out on her own. When you had to solve puzzles for a job, you learned to use your tongue in the same subtle ways. He had picked up her language during the month he had spent working by her side, and he knew–with a pang he could not ignore–these kind words could not be meant for him. Not Miles Richmond, anyway._  
  
_Now, why would Ernest pursue such a worthless folly? He knew the Seven Dragons. Intimately. It must have been fate that they had requested Miss Layton’s services; so he saw them in a new light. They had names. They had dreams. They had families. For goodness’ sake, he even held Cesar Chance’s infant child in his arms! She could not understand that it was precisely the reason why Ernest, who was really Miles, kept to his plan._  
  
_Because of all these things the Dragons had taken away from him, the things he could never get back. No matter how hard he tried._  
  
“I–I thought I could move on, b–but…”  
  
“Calm down, Ernest. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Ernest hazarded to open an eye. Miss Layton had put her hand against his own, slowly unfolding his fingers, to the broken piece of teacup cutting in his palm. With her head down, he could only see the frown on her lips, but he knew it well enough. It was the one she put on when solving a peculiarly arduous case. Right before she unveiled the culprit’s true identity.  
  
“If that’s really what you’re feeling, then…” She snapped her head up. “… You’re a failure as my assistant, Ernest Greeves!”  
  
“Wh–”  
  
“ _Kat!_ ”  
  
Miss Layton locked her eyes into his. These fierce blue eyes of hers like burning oil over the Thames’ surface; though Ernest dreaded them, he could not look away. “Do I really have to explain everything to you? You’re embarrassing me.” He could only swallow back a new wave of emotions that threatened.  
  
“Let me put it another way. Who was here when I first opened the detective agency? Who was here to assist me during my investigations? Who was here to cover for me when I was accused of Miss Pryce’s murder?”  
  
“M–Me?”  
  
“Unless you’ve forgotten, that is.”  
  
Ernest gasped in horror. “Of course not!” Yet as her smile returned, he remained puzzled. Miss Layton had always seemed so… simple. He admired this, too, the way she imposed her radiant presence to the world as if she always were an immutable part of it. She never let on what that barber’s cat thought of the cases, even less the role her assistant played into.  
  
“What I’m trying to get at,” Miss Layton stated as an obvious fact, “is that you’re family already.”  
  
– _Wait._  
  
_Uh?_  
  
“C’mon, Pinstripes,” Sherl piped in, nonchalantly. “That was obvious. You guys are basically married.”  
  
“Are we, now?” Miss Layton raised her arm, flaunting the grip she had around his fingers, closing the little distance between them. Ernest could only tighten his own grip, just to make sure she was here. Real and true. “Does that make you our pet?”  
  
“Forget it!”  
  
They started arguing–Ernest just grew aware of the routine it had become over the last month, an exchange many times rehearsed. Family. In Miss Layton’s mouth, the word was full of long idle afternoons in the garden, under the cover of the oak trees, of lemon scents, of laughter. Even as he tried to repeat it, just to get a grasp of what she just said–because he must have misheard it, right? But all the hints were, had always been, here–  
  
“Ernest?”An angel came to speak. “Why are you crying now?”  
  
He brushed his palm against his cheek, smearing a smile across. “It–It’s nothing, Miss Layton, I–Gosh, that’s a lot to take.”  
  
“… I didn’t know you were still having such dark thoughts,” she said at last. “Rosa gave us her clue about my father’s disappearance, and I couldn’t think of anything else since… Maybe I’ve just been bad at giving you the right hints?” Ernest shook his head. It was the closest thing to an apology Miss Layton would ever get to, and besides, he had done his best to hide his turmoil–even if, evidently, he had not done a very good job at that.  
  
“No, you–you’ve said everything. Thank you, Miss Layton.”  
  
The corners of her mouth fell halfway into an indescribable expression, but before he could question it, she bounced back. “Good! Now, wipe away those tears, or else my father’s going to think I’m abusing my employees.”  
  
“If I had my say–” A quick tug on the basset’s tail shut him down.  
  
As Miss Layton left the room, Sherl trotting right behind her, Ernest took a glimpse at her ethereal self in the kitchen window. He felt like he had missed something; like an opportunity, an evidence laid bare, like a kiss he was meant to give her back in the Saveloy Theatre, she waited for, for a gentlewoman was not to make the first step. But in her wake, the ghost smiled back at him.  
  
He could get used to Belle Classic turning cold over long stories. He would get used to crowded tea tables. To be part of a litter.


End file.
